Friday, March 7, 2014

Pius XII speaks to Catholic Farmers

I came across this in a collection of writings from Pius XII I was thumbing through. I was able to find it on the web and now recommend it to you. This is a MUST read - its packed. I highlighted a few lines that I found particularly interesting or profound:

A Welcome
We always experience particular pleasure in welcoming representatives of
occupations that make up the economic and social life of a people. We have added
satisfaction on this occasion in greeting you, beloved sons, delegates of a vast
National Confederation, comprised of a large number of owner-operator farmers.
The lands that you cultivate are the "sweet fields," "dulcia arva," so dear to
the gentle Vergil (Eclogue, 1, 3). They are the lands of Italy, whose perennial
and life-giving healthfulness, whose fertile fields, sunny hills, and shadowy
woods, whose generous vines and olive trees, whose sleek flocks were exalted by
Pliny (Nat. Hist. 1. III, 5, n. 41). "O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,
agricolas!" (Verg., Georg. II, 458-459). "O more than happy husbandmen,"
exclaimed the great poet of the country, "did they but know their blessings!"
Hence We could not let this occasion pass without speaking some word of
encouragement and exhortation, especially since we are all well aware how much
the moral recovery of our whole people depends on a class of farmers socially
sound and religiously firm.1Contact with Nature
More than anyone else. you live in continual contact with nature. It is
actual contact, since your lives are lived in places still remote from the
excesses of an artificial civilization. Under the sun of the Heavenly Father
your lives are dedicated to bringing forth from the depths of the earth the
abundant riches which His hand has hidden there for you. Your contact with
Mother Earth has also a deep social significance, because your families are not
merely consumer-communities but also and especially producer-communities.2Rooted in the Family Your lives are rooted in the family -- universally, deeply, and completely;
consequently, they conform very closely to nature. In this fact lies your
economic strength and your ability to withstand adversity in critical times.
Your being so strongly rooted in the family constitutes the importance of your
contribution to the correct development of the private and public order of
society. You are called upon for this reason to perform an indispensable
function as source and defense of a stainless moral and religious life. For the
land is a kind of nursery which supplies men, sound in soul and body, for all
occupations, for the Church, and for the State.3Rural Culture
So much the more, then, must great care be taken to preserve for the nation
the essential elements of what might be called genuine rural culture. We must
preserve the qualities of industriousness, simple and honest living, respect for
authority, especially for parental authority, love of country, and loyalty to
traditions which have proved a source of good throughout the centuries. We must
preserve readiness to aid one another within the family circle and amongst
families, from home to home. All of these qualities we must have animated with a
true religious spirit, for without such a spirit these very virtues tend to
degenerate into unbridled greed for profit. May the fear of God and faith in
God, a faith which finds daily expression in prayers recited together by the
whole family, sustain and guide the life of the workers of the fields. Let the
Church remain the heart of the village, the shrine of the people. Sunday after
Sunday, may it gather the faithful, true to the sacred traditions of their
ancestors. There may they lift their minds above material things to the praise
and service of God and to supplication for the strength to think and live in a
truly Christian manner during the coming week.4Balanced Rewards
Farming has essentially a family character and is, therefore, very important
to the social and economic prosperity of the whole people. In consequence, the
tiller of the soil has a special right to a proper reward from his labor. During
the last century and even at the present time there have been discouraging
examples of attempts to sacrifice farming to other ends. If one is looking for
the highest and most rapidly increasing national economy or for the cheapest
possible provisioning of the nation with farm products, there will be, in either
case, a temptation to sacrifice the farming enterprise.5 Duties to Soil and Neighbor
It devolves upon you, therefore, to demonstrate that on account of its family
character farming does not exclude the advantages of other kinds of business,
and, furthermore, that it avoids their evils. Be adaptable, attentive, and
active stewards of your native soil, which is to be used but never exploited.
Let it be seen that you are thinking, thrifty men, open to progress, men who
courageously employ your own and others' capital to help and supplement your
labor, provided that such expenditure does not endanger the future of your
families. Show that you are honest in your sales, that you are not greedily
shrewd at the expense of the public, and that you are well-disposed buyers in
your country's markets.
We know well how often it is possible to fall short of this ideal.
Notwithstanding uprightness of intention and dignity of conduct upon which many
farmers may pride themselves, it is none the less true that the present day
demands great firmness of principle and strength of will. You must prefer to
earn a living in the sweat of your brow rather than succumb to the diabolical
temptation of easy gain, which would take advantage of the dire need of a
neighbor.6Education for Rural Life
Another exhibition of selfishness frequently manifests itself through the
fault of parents who put their children to work too early in life to the neglect
of their spiritual formation, their education, their scholastic instruction, and
their special occupational training. There is no more mistaken idea than the
notion that the man who tills the soil does not need a serious and adequate
education to enable him to perform the varied duties of the season in timely
fashion.7Sin, the Land, and Labor
Sin did, in truth, render labor in the fields burdensome, but it was not sin
that introduced such labor into the world. Before there was any sin, "God gave
man the earth for his cultivation as the most beautiful and honorable occupation
in the natural order." In the wake of the original sin of our first parents, all
the actual sins of humanity have caused the curse to weigh upon the earth with
increasing heaviness. The soil has suffered successive scourges of every
kind-floods, earthquakes, pestilence, devastating wars, and land mines. In some
places it has become sterile, barren, and unwholesome, and has refused to yield
to man its hidden treasures. The earth is a huge wounded creature; she is ill.
Bending over her, not as a slave over the clod, but as the physician over a
prostrate sufferer, the tiller lovingly showers on her his care. But love, for
all that it is so necessary, is not enough. To know nature, to know, so to
speak, the temperament of one's own piece of land, sometimes so different from
that of the very next plot; to be able to discover the germs that spoil it, the
rodents that would burrow beneath it, the worms that would eat its fruits, the
weeds that would infest its crops; to determine what elements it lacks and to
choose the successive plantings that will enrich it even while it rests -- these
and so many other things require wide and varied knowledge and information.8Land Reforms
Besides all this, and quite apart from the rehabilitation made necessary by
the war, in many places the land demands that careful and well-planned
preliminary measures be taken before any reform can be accomplished in the
matter of land ownership and farm contracts. Without such measures, improvised
reform, as history and experience teach us, would develop into sheer
demagoguery. Therefore, far from being beneficial, it would be both useless and
dangerous, particularly today when humanity must still fear for its daily bread.
Quite often in times past, the incoherent, deceptive vaunting of unprincipled
orators has made rural populations the unwitting victims of exploitation and
slaves to a domination from which they would have instinctively shrunk.9City or Country
Because the farmer's life is so close to nature and based so substantially
upon the family, certain prevalent types of injustice show up the more
flagrantly in relation to that life. Such injustice finds its most evident
expression in the conflict between city and country. What is the reason for this
conflict, which, unfortunately, is especially characteristic of our own time?
Modern cities, with their constant growth and great concentration of
inhabitants, are the typical product of the control wielded over economic life
and the very life of man by the interests of large capital. As Our glorious
Predecessor, Pius XI, has so effectively shown in his Encyclical, "Quadragesimo
Anno," it happens too often that human needs do not, in accordance with their
natural and objective importance, rule economic life and the use of capital. On
the contrary, capital and its desire for gain determine what the needs of man
should be and to what extent they are to be satisfied. Therefore, it is not
human labor in the service of the common welfare that attracts capital to it and
presses it into its service. Rather, capital tosses labor and man himself here
and there like a ball in a game. If the inhabitant of the city suffers from this
unnatural state of affairs, so much the more is it contrary to the very essence
of the farmer's life. Notwithstanding all his difficulties, the tiller of the
soil still represents the natural order of things willed by God. The farmer
knows that man, by his labor, is to control material things; that material
things are not to control man.10The Flight to the City
This, then, is the deep-seated cause of the modern conflict between city and
country; each viewpoint produces altogether different men. The difference of
viewpoints becomes all the more pronounced the more capital, having abdicated
its noble mission to promote the good of all groups in society, penetrates the
farmer's world or otherwise involves it in its evils. It glitters its gold and a
life of pleasure before the dazzled eyes of the farm-worker to lure him from his
land to the city where he may squander his hard-won savings. The city usually
holds nothing for him but disillusionment; often he loses his health, his
strength, his happiness, his honor, and his very soul there. 11Land Monopoly
After the land has been so abandoned, capital hastens to make it its own; the
land then becomes no longer the object of love but of cold exploitation.
Generous nurse of the city as well as of the country; it is made to produce only
for speculation -- while the people suffer hunger; while the farmer, burdening
himself with debts, slowly approaches ruin; while the national economy becomes
exhausted from paying high prices for the provisions it is forced to import from
abroad. This perversion of private rural property is seriously harmful. The new
ownership has no love or concern for the plot that so many generations had
lovingly tilled, and is heartless towards the families who till it and dwell
upon it now. Private ownership, even though it sometimes leads to exploitation,
is not, however, the cause of this perversion. Even in those instances where the
State completely arrogates capital and the means of production to itself,
industrial interests and foreign trade, characteristic of the city, have the
upper hand. The real tiller of the soil then suffers even more. In any case, the
fundamental truth consistently maintained by the social teaching of the Church
is violated. The Church teaches that the whole economy of the people is organic
and that all the productive capacities of national territory should be developed
in healthy proportion. The conflict between country and city would never have
become so great if this fundamental truth had been observed.12 To Each His Share
You farmers certainly do not desire any such conflict; you want every part of
the national economy to have its share; however, you also want to keep your
share. Therefore, you must have the help of sensible political planning and
sound legislation. But your principal help must came from yourselves, from your
cooperative unions, especially from your credit unions. Perhaps, then, the
recovery of the whole economy may come from the field of agriculture.13A Community of Labor
And finally a word about labor. You tillers of the soil form within your
families a community of labor. You and your fellow-members and associates also
form another community of labor. Finally, you desire to form with all the other
occupational groups a great community of labor. This is in keeping with what has
been ordained by God and nature. This is the true Catholic concept of labor.
Work unites all men in common service to the needs of the people and in a
unified effort towards perfection of self in honor of the Creator and Redeemer.
In any case, remain firm in regarding your labor from the point of view of its
essential value. You and your families are contributing to the public welfare;
such labor protects your fundamental right to an income sufficient to maintain
you in accordance with your dignity and cultural needs as men. It implies also
your recognition of the necessity of uniting with all other occupational groups
who labor for the various needs of society. Your labor therefore, embodies your
support of the principles of social peace.14 A Parting Blessing
With all Our heart, dear sons, We invoke heaven's choicest blessings on you
and on your families. The Church has always blessed you in a particular manner,
and in many ways has brought your working year into her liturgical year. We
invoke these blessings upon the work of your hands, from which the holy altar of
God receives the bread and wine. May the Lord give you, in the words of Holy
Scripture, "the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, abundance of
corn and wine!" (Gen., XXVII:28) May your lands, like the fertile Etruscan
fields between Fiesole and Arezzo, so greatly admired by Livy, "be rich in grain
and cattle and an abundance of all things," "frumenti ac pecoris et omnium copia
rerum opulenti" (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1. XXII, cap. 3). With these sentiments
and these wishes We impart to you and to all those dear to you Our paternal
Apostolic Blessing. 15POPE LEO XIII SPEAKS FIFTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER Values of Land Ownership
". . . If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a
share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and
sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought
nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the greater
abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily
when they work on that which belongs to them, nay, they learn to love the very
soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat,
but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them.
That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to
the wealth of the community is self- evident. And a third advantage would spring
from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born; for no one
would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means
of living a decent and happy life . . ."
Leo XIII, "Rerum Novarum," May 15, 1891.
ENDNOTES

Catholic Rural Life Objectives Fourth Series: Kalven,
Janet, "Woman and
Post-War Reconstruction," pp. 25-28. Salm, Martin L., My Family
Cooperative," pp. 77-82. First Series: Baker. O. E., "The Church and the
Rural Youth," pp. 7-29. Manifesto on Rural Life Chapter I, "The Rural
Catholic Family, pp. 3-7. Task of Woman in the Modern World, Janet
Kalven. Land and Life for Woman McDonald, Rosemary, A Rural Mother Looks
at the
Land," 14-22. Home Making a Life-time Job, Catherine E. Dorff.
Sacramental Protection of The Family, Emerson Hynes. Population Trends,
L. G. Ligutti. The Bottom of the Barrel, Can We Survive, Patrick T.
Quinlan. Rural Life in a Peaceful World, p. 2.

Catholic Rural Life Objectives Second Series: Baker, O
E, "Will More or
Fewer People Live on the Land?" Third Series: Briefs, Goetz; "The Back
to the Land Idea," pp. 93-98. Manifesto on Rural Life Chapter III,
"Rural Settlement," pp. 13-17. I Am a Country Pastor, Figures Speak for
Themselves, Patrick T. Quinlan.

The Land and the Spirit, Most Rev. Peter W.
Bartholome. Land and Life for Woman Wickes, Mariette, "The Unfolding of
the Christian
Seasons," pp. 4-8. Agriculture and the Liturgical Year, Benedict
Ehmann.St. Isidore -- Patron of Farmers.

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"It is essential to cultivate and spread a clear ethic that is up to the task of addressing current challenges: Everyone should educate themselves in more wise and responsible consumption; promote personal responsibility, along with the social dimension of rural activities, which are based on perennial values, such as hospitality, solidarity, and the sharing of the toil of labor. More than a few young people have already chosen this path; also many professionals are returning to dedicate themselves to the agricultural enterprise, feeling that they are responding not only to a personal and family need, but also to a 'sign of the times,' to a concrete sensibility for the 'common good.'

"Let us pray to the Virgin Mary that these reflections can serve as a stimulus to the international community, while we give our thanks to God for the fruits of the earth and the work of man."